This invention relates to a machine for automatically perforating and comb binding blocks of loose sheets, and which makes provision for the insertion of hooks, for example in the preparation of wall calendars.
Binding machines for already perforated loose sheets are known, both of automatic type in which the binding elements, precut or continuously withdrawn from a feed reel, are engaged with and then inserted into the sheets without manual intervention, and of semiautomatic type in which it is possible to select and predetermine the number of comb loops to be cut off and inserted into the sheets, this possibly being non-continuous, but in which the engagement between the binding elements and the sheets takes place under static conditions by manually presenting the group of sheets to be bound in the engagement and fastening station. A semiautomatic machine of this type is for example described and claimed in Italian Pat. No. 959,769 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,158.
There are other devices which in order to form wall calendars, for example provide for automatically inserting the hook necessary for this purpose during the actual binding operations, i.e. at the moment of fastening the binding element. A machine of this type is described and claimed in Italian patent application No. 28738 A/76.
However, the requirement for a machine which can continuously and automatically bind sheets, including those which have not previously been perforated, and possibly over lengths spaced-apart at choice and with the intermediate insertion of a hook, as provided in the production of wall calendars, had remained unsatisfied.